Sunday, November 16, 2008

Last week I stayed in a four-star hotel in Manado. After enjoying a huge dinner, I spent several minutes lazing around in my room, switching TV channels. Saw II was on one of the channels--people vomitting blood. Switch. Indonesian News channels showing dead bodies. Switch.

Suddenly, channel 25 caught my attention. The screen only showed one particular scene. And a familiar one at that: the hotel lobby.

I couldn't believe my eyes. It's a direct feed from the hotel's security camera! And before I could really chew it, I switched to channel 26 and whoala!--another direct feed; showing the swimming pool!

What is this? Voyeur Channel?

Maybe the management intended to include this as a special service. All they needed to do was putting a brochure in every room, saying, "Dear Esteemed Guests, should you expect a company, ask him to wait in the lobby. Let him wait a couple of minutes. If he picks his nose or scratches his crotch, be advised to wear gloves before meeting him downstairs."

What? Did I use the channel to view the pool the next day? No. I'd seen all the other guests during breakfast. Them in swimwears? I'd rather watch Saw II.

So what? This has been there since many years and nobody has felt the need to complain. Who cares, unless you want to hide that you walk through the lobby with some "funny" companian. But hide from whom?

Sorry but you act as if the camera was placed somewhere hidden in your room which is clearly not the case. It's the lobby view camera and doesn't even have anything to do with a security cam. You can watch the lobby from your room or you can go down, sit there, have a drink and watch what's going on. There is nothing secret shown there. I really don't get your problem.

This proliferation of public monitoring is getting disturbing. I mean google has their street cam and there is talk of a bylaw in jakarta to register users of i-cafes (don't know how they do this but anyway). Whats going round in my head is this: how much would your behavior change if everything you did was recorded and subject to showing up on somebody elses website?

Yes it has, Mr. PJ. In the long run, probably won't look much in the surface. People might look as if they'd adapted to the idea. But that's if we use a myopic view of things.

On a broader scale, I think it'll cause a shift in society's behavior. Because the borders of privacy have been breached. I am no expert in anthropology, so I can't theorize or cite an example on what might happen. But I, as an individual, can say that constantly feeling watched won't do good to my stress level. Heighthened stress level in many individuals at the same period of time and location? Probably not good as well.

Oh, you can use it for a lot of things, JBrag. It'll still be a breach of privacy.

Books by Isman H. Suryaman

Read movies (in five minutes) in this book, Parodi Film Seru! Save yourself the time and trouble to queue for soiled seats and loud crowd. Opt for quick laughs instead! (Link leads to an article in Bahasa Indonesia.)

BaM! is a humor book which questions and plays with various generalizations and social-conditionings in Indonesia. In English, the title's concept translates into something like "Laugh Yourself to Life!"

The World"s a Comedy

If the guys who invented WWW realized that they would be setting up a humongous network to share the silliest things people do around the globe, they'd have burned down the whole project. But hey, like the old saying: when life gives you corns, don't just stop at making popcorns, proceed to build cheesy movie theaters.

Campaigns of The Fools

Gift Guides(Pointers for every guy on the neverending quest to find the "perfect gift" for their partners. Because... well, they expect us to fail anyway.)

The Cool War(A one year campaign which ended at January 9th, 2005. Pursuing the answer to Ultimate Question of All Time: Which is cooler, Indonesia or America?)

Against Semantical Illiteracy(A dormant-volcanically active campaign since January 5th, 2004, which has been voraciously hunting typos from all over the world. But isn't "dormant-volcanically active" a redundant oxymoron?)

Sensitive Journalism Now!(A not-even-half-hearted dedication of reporting stupid moments in journalism to the world. Started since January 2nd, 2004.)

Deadly Threats(Searching Deadly Threats potentials around the world. The kind of threats that can force two grown men burn down schools.)